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Its Sunday morning and I’m on my way down to South Carolina, where I’ll hopefully be watching the Super Bowl tonight at a retreat together with the Gulf Coast Fellows for Community Transformation (GCFCT); a fellowship in support of 17 of the most amazing community organizers from across 4 states (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi & Alabama), working to help their communities create a just and equitable recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. GCFCT is collaboration between JFSJ, the 21st Century Foundation and the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal, who joined forces two years ago to share our expertise and a long-term vision for the recovery. The truth is that six months ago, when we scheduled the retreat, taking the fellows away for respite (so desperately needed by these tireless leaders) and skills building this week, we – the staff on the ground and at the sponsoring foundations – maybe lacked the imagination to foresee this Super Bowl Sunday and the monumental excitement being felt in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast today. But, despite the odds and a less than stellar track record over the last 4 decades, the Saints today are a living embodiment of the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a community that has been dealt, and dealt itself at times, a pretty bad hand over the past decades (the disaster wasn’t Katrina, it was the decades of failed leadership, lack of imagination, and poor planning that created the conditions for the storm to leave behind such destruction). What the Saints have done this season, and what the 17 fellows do every day on the ground, is encourage and empower the people of the Gulf Coast to imagine something bigger and better. These fellows, working with immigrants, low-income communities, youth, the formerly incarcerated; working
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